1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to security systems, and more particularly relates to a golf bag and golf club security system.
2. General Background and State of the Art
As golf clubs have become more expensive and the disadvantage of losing a club such as a putter, wedge or driver during a round has become more severe, the loss or theft of golf clubs has become more and more of a problem. For example, a golfer may remove a selection of golf clubs from a golf bag to walk from a cart on a cart path to where the ball lies for a shot, lay the unused clubs down, and forget to retrieve the unused clubs after a shot is made. Whether the loss of a golf club is due to forgetfulness or outright theft, it would be desirable to provide an alarm system that would alert a player to the unauthorized removal of a golf club from the golfer's bag, or alert the player about an unnecessarily prolonged absence of a golf club from the player's bag after an authorized removal of one or more club, such as while making a shot.
In general, electrical detection of objects involves utilizing electrical and/or magnetic energy interactions between materials, and methods for detecting such electrical and/or magnetic energies can be generally divided into contact or non-contact methods. Non-contact sensing methods can be broadly categorized as coupled or transmitted energy interactions, and circuit designs to respond to these electrical and/or magnetic energies are commonly implemented steady state and/or shaped waveform strategies. The interacting objects can be active (powered) or passive (un-powered) participants in the interaction.
An inductance sensing golf bag security system is known in which a programmable alarm is mounted to or built into an existing golf bag to protect against theft of the golf bag. With the inductance sensing system, a tag incorporating a ferromagnetic metal may be attached to the golf clubs to give the tag a high magnetic permeability. While such a golf bag security system can detect unauthorized removal of a golf club from a golf bag once the system is armed, it would be desirable to provide a golf club reminder system for golf bags that can alert the golf bag user to both absent-minded loss and theft of golf clubs, for any desired combination of golf clubs in the golf bag. The present invention satisfies these and other needs.